86 
Mines and Mineral Statistics. 
HiTci’ across to Lo-^'or Cope’s Creole. It also extends from Xewstcad 
Creek, for some distance to tke -westward, covered up occasioiially by 
the older tertiary drift and basaltic trap. At Captain Swinton’s, broad 
dykes of eurite traverse it (See 7 e and 2 //), and in some localities 
'quartz reefs are frequent. One quartz reef near the Pine Pidge Mine, 
Cope’s Creek, contains copper ore, the green and blue carbonates, 
though not in payable quantity. Tlie reef varies from 4 inches to 4 
feet thick, and clips about S. 17° W. @ 80°. It is not improbable that 
some of tlie cpiartz reefs uiay be payably auriferous. 
The foregoing observations show that the geology of the district of 
Inverell reveals man 3 ' interesting facts connected witli the 2 )hysical 
history of this Country. 
It has been remarked that tlio tin-bearing granites are of at least 
two pei'iods of omission, and also that they are of later formation than 
the greens! one. (See fig. 7.) As to the age of the .granites, the 
section at A^cwstcad (fig. (J) indicates that they are newer than carboni- 
ferous, and this agreo.s with the opinion which tlie Itc'V. Mr. Clarke 
and other geologists have expressed on the subjeel. In his report 
(1853) the Kev. Mr. Chu’ke pointed out the resemblance wliich the 
!\ew England granites bore to those which he had seen in the European 
Alps and in Devon and Cornwall. And again, in his Anniversary 
Address (1872) to tlie Ibwal Society of A^ow South "Wales, he states 
that “ geologists at Homo have settled it that tlie stannifivous granites 
are pala'ozoie, pre-permian, and post-siliirian." Mr. David Forbes 
said, at the Geological Societ 3 ’’s meeting in December. 1871, that he 
had received specimens of the granite from the Ts’ew South 'Wales tin 
region, in the 3 'car 1850, and that he found them to be “perfectly 
Meiitical with the stanniferous granites of Cornwall, Spain, Portugal, 
Polivia, Peru, and l\lalacca.” 
Mr. G. H. F. Ulrich, F.G.S., has shown also that the micaceous 
veins at tlic Elsmore Tin Mine represent the rock chai'iudcristics of the 
tin ore districts of Saxon\' and Pohemia. 
Sir Chas. JjyoW Geology^ p. 700), after referring to Sir II. de 
la Bcclic’s lleport on the Geology of Cornwall, slates “that the most 
.ancient Cornish lodes are younger than the coal measures of that part 
ot England, although ])ro{jably they are not newer than the beginning 
of the permian period.” And s])eakmg of the modes of occurrence 
and “iaultiug” of the tin lodi's, the same author luentions (p. 701) 
that “ it is commonly said in Cornwall that there are eight distinct 
systems of veins, whicli can in like manner be referred to as many 
successive movcmcnis or Iractures. Both the tin and copper veins in 
Cornwall run nearly east and west. 3Iany lodes in Cornwall and 
elsewhere are extremely variable in size, being one or two inches in 
one part and then 8 or 10 teet in another, at the distance of a few 
fathoms, and then narrowing again as before. Such alternate swelling 
and contraction is so often characteristic as to require explanation. 
The walls of fissures in general,” observes Sir H}'. de la. Beche, 
“are rarely peilect ])lanes throughout their eiitirc course, nor could we 
well expect them to bo so, since they commonly pass through rocks of 
uneqiial hardness and different mineral composition. If, therefore, the 
opposite sides of such irregular fissures slide upon each other, that is 
to say, if there be a fault, as in the case of so many mineral veins, the 
parallebsm of the opposite walls is at once entirely destroyed.” These 
